Color Reflections of the Past and Present

Color Reflections of The Past and Present

When I begin to think I’ve convinced myself that life couldn’t possibly get any more frustrating, it does. My skin, or rather the brownness of it, shows me otherwise. Many are the stories untold through the sea of souls that were once draped in black skin. Stories of life, love, pain and ultimately, joy. For in Heaven the bad things that happen on Earth are no longer worth mentioning. I accept the concept that more has happened in our history than I could ever possibly know. The song “Strange Fruit” only a fraction of the injustices African Americans have endured. Which leads me to wonder, how did they do it? How did they live a life seemingly void of hope? What gave them the will to survive?

I can only think of one answer – God. He gave them the will to keep going, there is no other possible answer. I know that I could never comprehend what my ancestors went through. And whatever fabrications I may have had in comparison are nothing against what was actually the Negro reality in America. Prior generation remembers bits and pieces.

My mother was born in 1954; a time when segregation and blatant racism were prevalent in the South. The “Whites Only” and “Colored Only” signs seem downright surreal to me, like the clock in Salvadore Dali’s paintings because I’ve only seen them in media but those before me seen them in real life. I believe I have the life I have today, immersed in freedom, to become whatever I desire because of the lives lived before me. And not just those in my family but the lives of all people of color throughout history. We owe them a debt we can never fully repay.

Why? Because we live a life that they only dreamed of. Today there is hope, possibilities and opportunities as vast as the depths of our imagination. And so we owe them, ourselves and God. To exempliate, radiate and educate. To be not only the best African Americans, but also the best human beings possible.